A weblog for students engaged in doctoral studies in the field of human rights. It is intended to provide information about contemporary developments, references to new publications and material of a practical nature.

Saturday, 13 March 2010

Commentary on the Rome Statute

Oxford University Press have just published The International Criminal Court: A Commentary on the Rome Statute, of which I am the author.I apologise for what some may feel is a shameless bit of self-promotion, but I promise not to do so often on this blog. The book is about 1,350 pages long, and consists of an article by article review of the Rome Statute. It takes into account the case law of the Court up to 1 July 2009, as well as academic writing on the subject in English, French, German, Spanish and Italian. I've reviewed the written record of the drafting of the Statute, avoiding the temptation of many writers to claim 'this is what we meant' and instead basing conclusions on objective, verifiable sources. There is a full subject index, as well as tables of cases and instruments that are cited.I've been studying the Court since the early 1990s, when the International Law Commission prepared the draft statute that formed the basis of further negotiations under the aegis of the United Nations General Assembly. I attended several of the Preparatory Committee sessions, as well as the Rome Conference. I'm now looking forward to Kampala, in June, where the first Review Conference of the Statute will be held. I've also written many articles on the Court, as well as the Introduction to the International Criminal Court, which will appear with Cambridge in a fourth edition early next year. It has been translated into Chinese, Turkish and Farsi.The Commentary joins two other similar works, the first published under the editorship of Antonio Cassese, in 2002, and the second under the editorship of Otto Triffterer, in 2008. I have contributions in both of those volumes too.It is my hope that the book will assist the Court, which will soon move into its second decade of existence. It is an expensive book, I'm afraid, at GBP 150 or $US 240 (the two other commentaries are double or more that price), and that may unfortunately put it out of reach of many people . The book will be on sale at the upcoming American Society of International Law conference where, I believe, it will be available at a significant discount. It should quickly find its way into the major reference libraries. Just please don't make too many photocopies!

3 comments:

Congratulations for the book! I'm sure it will be immensely useful for those working with international criminal law. I'm looking forward to reading it. I would also like to congratulate you for the blog. Even though I rarely comment on it, I check it for new posts almost daily. It has really been an incentive for me to continue to study int. criminal law.

The Editorial Team

W. Schabas, Y. McDermott, J. Powderly, N. Hayes

William A. Schabas is professor of international law at Middlesex University in London. He is also professor of international criminal law and human rights at Leiden University, emeritus professor human rights law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights of the National University of Ireland Galway, and an honorary professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in Beijing and Wuhan University. He is the author of more than 20 books and 300 journal articles, on such subjects as the abolition of capital punishment, genocide and the international criminal tribunals. Professor Schabas was a member of the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was a member of the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Technical Cooperation in Human Rights and president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He serves as president of the Irish Branch of the International Law Association chair of the Institute for International Criminal Investigation. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Royal Irish Academy. Here is the full c.v.

Dr Yvonne McDermott is a Lecturer in Law in Bangor University, UK, where she is also Director of Teaching and Learning and Director of the Bangor Centre for International Law. Yvonne is a graduate of the National University of Ireland, Galway (B. Corp. Law, LL.B.), Leiden University (LL.M. cum laude) and the Irish Centre for Human Rights (PhD). Her research focuses on fair trial rights, international criminal procedure and international criminal law. Her first monograph, Fairness in International Criminal Trials, will be published by OUP in 2015.

Niamh Hayes has been the Head of Office for the Institute for International Criminal Investigations (IICI) in The Hague since September 2012. She is about to complete her Ph.D. on the investigation and prosecution of sexual violence by international criminal tribunals at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, National University of Ireland Galway. She previously worked for Women's Initiatives for Gender Justice as a legal consultant, and as an intern for the defence at the ICTY in the Karadzic case. She has lectured on international criminal law and international law at Trinity College Dublin and, along with Prof. William Schabas and Dr. Yvonne McDermott, is a co-editor of The Ashgate Research Companion to International Criminal Law: Critical Perspectives (Ashgate, 2013). She is the author of over 45 case reports for the Oxford Reports on International Criminal Law and has published numerous articles and book chapters on the investigation and prosecution of sexual and gender-based violence as international crimes.

Joseph Powderly is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University. Between September 2008 and January 2010, he was a Doctoral Fellow/Researcher at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, where he worked, among other projects, on a Irish Government-funded investigation and report into the possible perpetration of crimes against humanity against the Rohingya people of North Rakhine State, Burma/Myanmar. He is currently in the process of completing his doctoral research which looks at the impact of theories of judicial interpretation on the development of international criminal and international humanitarian law. The central thesis aims to identify and analyze the potential emergence of a specific theory of interpretation within the sphere of judicial creativity. Along with Dr. Shane Darcy of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, he is co-editor of and contributor to the edited collection Judicial Creativity in International Criminal Tribunals which was published by Oxford University Press in 2010. He has written over 80 case-reports for the Oxford Reports on International Criminal Law, as well as numerous book chapters and academic articles on topics ranging from the principle of complementarity to Irish involvement in the drafting of the Geneva Conventions. In December 2010, he was appointed Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Criminal Law Forum. His research interests while focusing on international criminal and international humanitarian law also include topics such as the history of international law and freedom of expression.

Search This Blog

Loading...

Interested in PhD studies in human rights?

Students interested in pursuing a doctorate in the field of human rights are encouraged to explore the possibility of working at Middlesex University under the supervision of Professor William A. Schabas and his colleagues. For inquiries, write to: w.schabas@mdx.ac.uk.